After the Rain Falls
by Tahimikamaxtli
Summary: Long after the last winter rains have fallen, spring begins anew; young sprouts and budding flowers welcome a new year that arrives on a dancing wind born of hope. Join Yasuo and Riven as they stumble into an unknown future with one another, facing challenges together they never imagined they would face: life, love, family, and more.


Coming Undone:

The late winter snow had already fallen and melted into bright rivulets of frigid water long before Riven finally saw the familiar little house on the hill again. The sight was so unassumingly unaffected that, though her white hair was some inches longer and her skin was a shade or two darker, it was as though she had never left to begin with. For several moments, she simply stood there without moving, chest rising and falling evenly as she breathed in the achingly familiar scent of the forest around her. And with each exhale, the stiff knot that had formed deep in her chest during the past several months almost seemed to soften. The fingertips of her right hand drummed against her thigh with a restless energy as she steeled her resolve. The early spring breeze blew around her ankles as though it too was urging her to keep walking, and it was surprisingly warm.

Riven exhaled loudly, and stepped one foot before the other.

Slowly, the little house grew in size and sharpened in clarity, until she could almost make out the lines of the different planks that made up its walls. Some ways off in the gently rolling hills behind the house, she spotted the form of a large, jet-black horse that was munching contentedly on the grass. It was a reassuring sight – at the very least, Yasuo had stayed. For the briefest of moments, she hoped – foolishly, she knew – that he would not be home when she returned; that as though, by slipping in unannounced, she would somehow be able to settle back into her daily rhythm with him and pretend that she had never left. It was a foolish hope, and she quelled it as soon as it came. Raising one hand to cover her face, she narrowed her eyes against the bright afternoon sun.

And then she saw him.

He was little more than a tall silhouette moving against the bright blue of the cloudless afternoon sun, but there was something in the languid grace of his movements that tugged at something deep in Riven's chest. Though she did not do so of her own accord, her pace quickened. By some miracle, it seemed as though he had not noticed her yet, and Riven's fingers trembled for some reason she could not place. He was shirtless beneath the sun, and the light danced off his fair skin as he swung an axe mechanically into a large log of firewood. It was clear by the size of the pile at his feet that he had been at his task for some time, and sweat shone like oil on his skin. Riven walked until she could hear the thud of the axe before she stopped some paces away from him, and the trembling in her hand increased. He continued – apparently unaware of her presence – for several more seconds before he finally paused in his work, straightening for a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow. As he did, he caught sight of her standing there, and he froze. For several seconds, they remained motionless, staring at one another as though neither believed the other was real.

And then, as though he had not seen her at all – as though he had seen anyone else but her – Yasuo found his hold on his axe once more and resumed his slow swinging.

Riven remained where she stood – she had not expected him to say anything, after all. She watched him from her place, not saying a word as he split another log. She opened her mouth to speak, but then thought better of it and simply settled for crossing her arms over her chest instead. The wind blew through her hair, and she looked in the direction of the surrounding forest.

"You're back," he said plainly, speaking the first words for either of them. She looked back at him; he had not looked away from his work, and his voice betrayed nothing.

She nodded, even though he was not looking at her. "I am."

"Where were you?" he asked, as though she had only been gone a day or two.

She hesitated. "… Noxus."

She could tell, by the way he paused for only the slightest moment, that he was surprised.

"I had to see it for myself. See what it had become."

"And?" he asked bluntly.

"When I got there, I realized… no matter how much Noxus meant to me, I didn't care about it as much as… I realized if I stayed there, I would never see you again, and that…" She cleared her throat. "I didn't want that."

He was silent for a long while.

"7 months, 2 weeks, and 5 days," he said finally, punctuating each word with a swing of the axe. "That's how long you were gone." He swung the axe one last time, leaving it embedded in the log as he turned to face her. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes were darker and more intense than she had ever seen them – dark with pain as much as with anger.

Riven was not surprised that he had kept count; she had not, but she knew that he would. She opened her mouth and closed it again as she found that she did not know how to reply. Then: "I didn't count."

He laughed, the sound short and humorless as it echoed around them. "I know you wouldn't. But I did. I…" He looked away, as though the sight of her pained him. "No letter, no note, no nothing," he began again, and she saw the muscles in his jaw working. "I just woke up that day and you were gone." He looked down at his feet, then up at the sky before continuing. "I went looking for you, you know? I must've spent damn near a month asking if anyone had seen you. I tore up our room to see if you left anything that would-" He stopped himself, and he looked back at her. "I should've known better."

"I'm sorry." The words felt as hollow as they sounded, and they fell pathetically between them.

"No, you're not," said Yasuo flatly, and the bluntness of his words stung because she knew he was right. "You're a lot of things, Riven, but apologetic isn't one of them." He paused, and she saw the ridge of his throat move as he swallowed. "That's one of the things I loved about you."

His choice of words did not escape her, and Riven nearly took a step forward to reach out to him – to touch him and soothe him and kiss him until the pain she could see on his face was no more. But she did not; she had not travelled so long on her own only to abandon her resolve now. It would be an insult to him. She had already had this conversation with him a thousand times in her head, and now it was time to face him for real. Inhaling deeply, she looked him in the eyes.

"I didn't come back to try to apologize for what I did. I know you don't… that it won't change anything."

"Then what?" he said, and she could hear the anger in his voice. "Why come back here at all, Riven?"

"To finally try to tell you how I really feel." She swallowed. "About you."

There was agony in his eyes that he could not hide before he looked down at his hands. "Maybe I'm not too sure how I feel about you anymore."

Riven had prepared herself for such an answer – had steeled her nerves with conversation in the mirror, and had drowned her fears in alcohol on countless nights – but that did little justice to the sudden, seizing pain that drove deep into her chest. And for the first time, she thought that she knew – _truly_ knew – his fear from all their time together: the fear of reaching out a hand and being unsure whether someone would take it in return. And despite her resolve, she was unable to stop herself from taking a single, desperate step forward, just to be closer to him.

"Will you listen?" she said, and she heard the pleading note in her own voice.

He made a strange, motion – as though he had also stopped himself from running at her – and he gave a jerky nod that could hardly have been called a nod at all.

"I know I hurt you," she blurted out, desperate that he should hear _something_ of hers before he inevitably chose to turn away. "And I know that you hate me." She swallowed, and her arms came to fold themselves tightly over her chest. "All those months we spent together, I was so sure that you already hated me. That any moment, I'd wake up and you'd have already left."

For a moment, he looked as though he wanted to say something, but he held his tongue. And through the pain – through the anger – and through the fact that she knew he likely wanted nothing more in that moment than to disagree with whatever she said, she saw the truth in his eyes.

"And don't pretend like I never hurt you – back then _or_ now. Don't pretend like all those times you told me you loved me, and I never said it back, that it didn't hurt you. Because I know it did." She shook her head. "I told you loving me would be hard. I told you that I wasn't the…" She sighed and shuddered rather than finish her thought, leaning her head back so that she could look up at the sky – so that she could blame the stinging in her eyes on the sun. "I'm… love isn't something that I do. It never was, even… even before what happened to me. Even after we… even after that night together. Even then, I was so damn sure that I wasn't in love with you. Convinced myself that it was just-" She bit her tongue. "I don't even fucking know. That it was something else – _anything_ else. Anything that wouldn't make me feel so fucking weak. As though if I admit it, it would…" She paused to look at him, and she was surprised to find that he was looking back at her. "I didn't – _still_ don't – know how to give you back what you deserve. Because you do; you do deserve it. If anyone does, it's you. I just… I don't think I was ever the person who could give it to you. Because you deserve someone who's not me."

She exhaled sharply, with something breathless that was almost akin to a laugh as she blinked back the first tears she had felt in a long time. It was as though something had torn all the breath from her lungs – every breath she ever had or ever would draw. And though she felt light – as light as the wind – now that she had said what she had wanted to say, there was a strange hollowness in its place, as though now she were made of paper.

"Gods, I…" She laughed again, looking away from him. "I never wanted to hurt you. I hope if… after all this, that you at least believe that: I never meant to hurt you. Not back then and not now." She looked down at her feet, grinding her toe into the dirt. "And the more I thought about it, the more I was sure that the last thing I wanted was to hurt you again. Maybe that's why I left. Because hurting you then was still better than how much I'd make you hurt if I stayed." She exhaled shakily, feeling herself rattle like a leaf. "I'm not a good person. No matter how much you tried to convince me that I was, I knew that I… that I'm not good. That I never will be, no matter how much I try. But… those months… being around you? It made me feel…" Riven felt her chest swell with a painful tightness that threatened to rip her apart where she stood. "I almost felt like a person again." She swallowed. "And it took me a year – a year of wandering on my own without you, a year of being so alone it hurt – to finally realize just how much you meant to me. Just how much you _mean_ to me." She inhaled, suddenly feeling very exposed in front of him. "And I realize now, after all this time, that I was always in love with you. That I _did_ love you." She looked at him. "That I still do. And I… I'm so sorry that I couldn't say it sooner."

And she stood, waiting for an answer that did not come, not even when she finally closed the distance between them. He did not resist – nor did he do anything else – when she stepped close enough to finally touch him. His skin was warm as she took hold of his face, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. Her fingers tingled with the sensation of his warmth as she stepped away.

"Goodbye, Yasuo," she managed somehow, before turning and walking away from the man she loved.


End file.
